


quinque plus unum

by monstersinthecosmos



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, aka daniel in venice and armand as a messy human in the 80s, reverse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 00:21:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13201704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monstersinthecosmos/pseuds/monstersinthecosmos
Summary: VC gift exchange for @sheepskeleton! I had to write this in a crunch so I combined two fanfic tropes, a good ole 5 + 1 with a CLASSIC REVERSE AU! So here we have, Five Times Marius Was a Selfish Asshole + One Time He Did the Right Thing, set in the reverse AU where Daniel was the one in Venice and Armand is the modern human. >:D





	quinque plus unum

**Author's Note:**

> This is a [vcsecretgift](http://vcsecretgifts.tumblr.com/) for [sheepskeleton](http://sheepskeleton.tumblr.com/)! 
> 
> Today I didn't name my fic after a song but for reference, this was written to a lot of Dead Can Dance lmao. Like [are you kidding me is this not the most Marious thing you've ever heard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2IVCyFt2Os).
> 
> Also shoutout to my girl [madshelley](https://madshelley.tumblr.com/) for answering some whacky language questions I had. :D (Language is funny and I'm open to hearing corrections, feel free to tell me!)

 

_unus_

 

He first saw Daniel in a tavern. The boy was laughing too loud, being a bit too obnoxious. The arrogance and sarcasm rolled off like heat, like a scent in the air that Marius could taste.

Yet even beneath the tacky layer of ego, beneath the drunk slurring, Marius could see the charm, the raw intellect. By the end of the night they were seated together, and Marius was buying him more drinks, and asking his thoughts about Tacitus.

And up close he saw it wasn’t a boy at all, but a young man. Like the layer of uncouth behavior, there was a layer of grime. Dusty clothes and dirt beneath his fingernails, his hair an ashy light brown that might gleam like gold if it was washed. The state of disarray made him seem younger. He was slumped over the heavy oak table, almost asleep atop his folded arms, when Marius asked if he had somewhere to stay.

Nowhere, the boy said. Nowhere. And Marius could piece the story together, even as drunk and incoherent as the thoughts were, coming to him in fragments.

For a long while he told himself that he took Daniel home out of good will, out of charity. And it was a pleasant coincidence that Daniel benefited from the arrangement. He fell into place nicely as the boys’ new tutor, a cheerful addition to the palazzo.

But he knew, night after night, as the boys went to bed and he entertained Daniel for hours with wine and conversation, that the arrangement was selfish. Whenever he could impress Daniel with obscure facts, reveal to him an ancient artwork, dazzle him with pieces in his library, he positively bloomed under the warmth of Daniel’s admiration.

And giving someone a place to stay is only noble if you let them leave.

It was the trip to Florence that did it, one he’d attempted in the past, made easier with Daniel as a chaperone. Vincenzo was loyal but too old, didn’t have it in him and could never keep up. But Daniel could bring the boys all around the city during the day. He showed them the Ponte Vecchio and brought them inside Giotto’s Campanile and explained what each building in the Piazza della Signoria was. When Marius met up with them at dusk he could hear the way the boys were all still thinking about it, excited about everything they’d learned.

Daniel drank too much wine at dinner and every time he closed his eyes he was seeing the paintings he’d shown them. They were branded into his mind, and Marius could see them as Daniel played them over and over. He kept picturing the faces of all the boys in _Madonna della Melagrana_ and the stretched body of Mars. It made Marius’s heart ache in joy and pain.

Here was someone who understood, who saw what Marius saw.

The decision to turn him wasn’t made quickly, wasn’t instinctual. It was a long ways off still, but he knew that night, meeting Daniel after he’d put the boys to bed, luring him to his warm chamber, that he would need to buy time. That Daniel was a curious and independent creature. That he could be inspired, maniacally so, that the right sculpture or philosopher or drunk in a tavern could draw him away. That he would be driven to exploring, leaving Venice, leaving Marius and the boys behind.

Later, he’d pretend that it was all a coincidence, that it was a natural progression of their relationship, and he’d tell himself that he wasn’t wrong, wasn’t manipulative that night. But it was a lie.

Daniel’s hair was gold in the firelight, framing his face in willowy strands. And Marius would remember that expression on his face forever--part awe, part desperation--as Daniel tasted the Blood for the first time. He squeezed Marius by the hand and the forearm, fused to the opened stream of his wrist. It was a weak grip, human, but Marius knew it was as tight as Daniel could go.

And he’d remember forever the sounds Daniel made a bit later, climaxing under Marius’s deft hand, and he’d remember the taste of Daniel’s mouth as he swallowed the moans. And he’d pretend all of it was normal, that it was what they each wanted, and he’d bury the fact that he’d done it on purpose to make him stay.

 

* * *

 

 

_duo_

 

Pandora was the last person Marius could remember invoking his temper like this. In his more lucid moments he could remember to blame himself and only himself--he knew Daniel for years, he should never have expected the Blood to quell his insolent nature--but it was more common for him to fly into blind rages.

Of course, blind rages often lead to physical quarrels, to lashing, to more Blood, and inevitably to bed. Frustrating, but ultimately a productive step in their relationship, Marius eventually learned.

Still, he’d pet Daniel’s hair after, and rub over the pink spots on his skin that were just-healed, and take comfort for once in the barrier. Oftentimes he craved the ability to read Daniel, wished he could know what he was thinking. He missed seeing the way Daniel could daydream about a portrait he’d seen or a book he’d read. But in these moments he was glad for the privacy. Daniel would apologize and fall asleep at his side, and Marius contemplated if and when he should reveal the shrine.

Daniel had been asking questions. Too many questions. Marius wished his studies the best, encouraged him to be a scholar, truly still loved the inspiration that would flicker in his beautiful violet eyes. But _anything else, darling. Anything._ He wished Daniel would stop asking questions about blood drinkers.

In those moments, sated and warm and comfortably receding from his own anger, he visualized what might happen. Daniel would be so excited, inflamed, if he really knew the truth. He’d be so eager to take to the streets, to run from city to city, to wake every immortal he could find and share what he’d learned. It could end in any number of disasters--they might be stolen, they might be destroyed. And the worst thought, one that could clench tight in his throat and make him think he’s suffocating--was that Daniel might leave.

It could be that he’d embark on a holy mission, spreading the word of the Parents, obsessing over his new dogma. It could also be that, once he knew, really knew, and once he realized other ancients were out there, he wouldn’t find Marius so extraordinary.

Like clockwork each time, he’d curl around Daniel’s sleeping body, hungry and possessive. He’d stroke Daniel’s cheek with the back of his knuckles and think of Pandora, out there somewhere he couldn't find her.

He wasn’t sure if it was the Parents that he didn’t want to share, or simply Daniel, but the outcome was the same as he kissed the top of Daniel’s head and opted for silence.

 

* * *

 

 

_tres_

 

Marius touched his chest, rubbing his palm slowly across his breastbone. It was a human gesture he couldn’t remember employing in all his years as an immortal. He couldn’t remember cycling through emotions this rapidly, uselessly panicking like this, since he was alive. He recalled Mael, face gentle, rubbing soothing motions across his chest and telling him to breathe, and how he used to do it himself in the days and weeks after when the fear would return. Back in his damp cell, alone, waiting for death.

 _The zeal of the converted,_ Raymond’s letter said.

Daniel was down there in the streets, and it was so windy up in the tower. Marius’s hair kept flying into his face. He rubbed at his chest, trying to navigate the onslaught of shock, then heartbreak, then fear. Not just fear, but a deep and paralyzing _terror_ , and for a moment he wondered if it would ever really go away. Terror like that feels infinite, unbreakable.

He  stuck to the rooftops, tracing Daniel’s every move. His beautiful hair was caked in filth, matted into disgusting knots. Oh, if Marius could cut it, maybe it would grow back to its original lustre. His heart was a mess in his chest, struggling to beat, wracked with disappointment and hurt.

_Oh, Daniel._

His mind flashed on the nights in Venice, combing through Daniel’s hair with his fingers, reveling in the pleased little noises Daniel would make when his scalp was massaged. Cutting it should work, he knew, but he couldn’t help imagining the transformative power of a bath, how it might wash away these years of betrayal, that he could  take the care to detangle Daniel’s hair a strand at a time in the healing, fragrant steam.

But could the same be done with Daniel’s soul?

From building to building, watching as Daniel stalked the muddy streets and alleys in rags, viciously taking innocent life. The fear and pain slowly shifted to defeat and _fury_.

For centuries, millennia, his entire life, Marius had prided himself on the ability to compartmentalize his feelings. Matters of the heart were no less subject to sense and order. Keeping everything where it belongs is the only way, really. This is what he always told himself.

So it was confusing, overwhelming, utterly destructive to his composure, to see Daniel like this.

Where was the curious scholar? Where was the passion, the creativity?

He listened from above the cemetery when Daniel returned to the catacombs below, completely crushed to hear the old exuberance in his voice as he preached to his masses, the same fiery personality. If he were speaking other words, his enthusiasm may have been inspiring. Marius thought back to the way it was with the boys in Venice, Daniel’s easy sense of charisma, how his magnetic personality always drove the lessons home. And, loathe as he was to admit it, Marius could hear the same thing with the fools underground. Daniel was charming. He was a natural leader.

There were conflicting urges at play--should he slaughter them or save them?--and he wondered if he could still get physically ill.

Later, he’d look back and bask in the sadness of it all. He’d imagine that it was somehow a progression of their many cutting arguments, that Daniel was bound to leave and the defeat was inevitable. For centuries he'd frame himself as the victim and convince himself that Daniel wouldn't have come with him, anyway, and losing Pandora again, losing Bianca, only affirmed the self-doubt. That he left had been for the best.

But he didn't consider the price of Daniel’s indoctrination, couldn’t afford to wonder if he could've been saved. That his immediate reaction had been to make it about himself was such a deep and dark stain on his self control that he rewrote it completely.

 _Aron to vevlamme, irte i vlavi_ , he would say, over and over in his head, a mantra as he painted. He wondered if he would simply heal, come to his senses, try again some time. But rejecting his sense of injury tended only to reject Daniel completely.

Deep somewhere, buried where he wouldn’t find it, was the truth that he turned his back out of fear. But the comforting reassurance of ego told him that Daniel would never accept him again, that he was too far gone. And he held to that, embraced it, because he never learned how to admit he was wrong.

 

* * *

 

 

_quattuor_

 

He found Armand in Cairo.

Ten years since he saw the boy on Daniel’s island, but the radiant face was unmistakable, even under the coating of dust, even with the vacant expression. Clumsy, this one, leaving trails of bodies in his wake, making the papers. From afar, his energy was indistinguishable from the other young ones, but when Marius found him there in the alley he was quietly shocked. A step above eating rats, crouched over the still-cooling corpse. Blood on the corner of his mouth and under his nails.

“Armand,” Marius said. It was such a dull flicker of recognition as he lifted his head to meet Marius’s gaze. Did he even remember his name?

“Come with me, Armand,” he said. He reached his hand out and probed gently into the boys thoughts. He wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t able to sense Armand sooner--all hints of his personality were entombed in the static, scattered into little pieces and parts. Unrecognizable. Discordant shambles, fragments, repetitive loops of words that went nowhere. For a heavy moment Armand only stared, and his gaze darted between Marius’s face and his outstretched hand. His eyes narrowed with the suspicion of a wounded animal.

He knelt to meet Armand’s eye-level and tried again. Went to touch the boy’s knee. But Armand flinched, and drew back, swayed until he hit the brick wall behind him. There were no clues to his misgivings in his thoughts, just the same broken mix of language and image that Marius couldn’t decipher. Only it was louder now.

“I won’t hurt you, Armand,” he reached out again, and Armand still flinched, but didn’t recoil this time. “Do you remember me? Why don’t you come with me?”

The brows knit together, a vague effort at focusing. Marius could sense the way his memories were trying to surface, but it was so dark inside, so murky. He was trying to piece together this gentle face, the blue eyes. But it was a thread he was afraid to follow, because if he’d remember Marius he might remember the island, he might remember the Queen, he might remember…

“Daniel,” he said. Hoarse whisper, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as if to cleanse himself of the word. Marius smiled and leaned in closer.

“Yes, Armand,” he reached forward to hold him by the shoulder. “Yes, I know Daniel. Why don’t you come with me.”

He was such a bony little thing, like a broken bird, shoulders hunched as Marius lead him away. His feet dragged in the road, kicking up dirt. And the hysterical thoughts slowed. They didn’t get more coherent, but they became quieter, until he was almost empty.

In the hotel suite, Armand examined his surroundings like he’d never seen civilization before. Wasn’t this the same one with the lavish rooms on Night Island, full of video game machines and lava lamps and the shining glass coffee table?

Centuries ago, Marius had dreamed that he could lovingly comb the knots from Daniel’s hair, clean him up and take him back. And this wasn’t the same, not quite, but it seemed the balm to an old wound as he helped Armand into the tub. He used his thumbs to wipe the dirt away from the full cheeks, revealing the gleaming, perfect skin beneath. He took the time to cut around the gnarls in the auburn hair and massaged the scalp with scented conditioner.

He hadn’t planned for this, was caught unprepared after when he realized the boy had no clothes to wear. They would have to fix it tomorrow--he’d have to order something--but for now…

The sight of him afterwards, still confused but slightly less lost, with one of Marius’s sweaters draping down to show off a collarbone, created such a flood of feelings and memory that Marius wasn’t sure what to do. And shining there, clean, a bit like his old self, it was obvious why Daniel had chosen this one.

“Like Botticelli,” Marius mumbled.

Armand’s head tilted to the side but he said nothing. The perfect image of the Quattrocento, like he’d been transported here, and Marius’s heart ached as he took it in.

He combed the water from Armand’s hair, and wrapped him in a blanket, and sat him down on the sofa in front of the television. Still silent, but his thoughts were thawing, recognition was chiseling through as he stared at the colorful glass screen. He drew his knees to his chest and watched, pliant. Obedient.

Marius’s fingers trailed over the telephone receiver on the nightstand. It would be a quick phone call to make, he imagined. _Hello, Daniel, I found your fledgling, we are in Cairo. When can you collect him?_

But instead he looked back across the room at the face, the television splashing him in blue and white light. He was hollow enough that he seemed almost serene.

And no, he realized, and he drew himself away. And then he was at Armand’s side again, petting his hair, and his presence there felt like an anchor that he’d been missing.

His life had been spiraling for some years now, colored by a fruitless, uncomfortable dread.

But Armand…

The child of his child, and he loved this boy instantly and impossibly.

Calling Daniel would be quick and he knew it would be right. But he understood something of Armand’s nature, he understood the suffering.

And he convinced himself, then and there, that in the hands of another he might never be healed.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_quinque_

 

They stood over the blackened, smouldering pile, the cloying muck that had once been Santino. He’d wanted the triumph to last longer than this, to feel warmer. But it had been quickly shattered when he saw the abject heartbreak on Daniel’s face.

It wasn’t the dramatic picture of wailing that Maharet had made earlier, and somehow his stillness was worse. He knelt to the ground and touched the edge of the mess, his fingertips swirling a pattern like it was a signature, a sending-off. Marius saw the way his shoulders stiffened at the feeling of it--it must be cooling, sticky--and the satisfied afterglow shifted abruptly into bitter jealousy.

When he stood, and turned to face Marius again, his eyes were clouded with red.

“Why would you do this?”

He felt Pandora’s hand on his arm, holding him as if to prevent him from lashing out. And he thought it was ridiculous for a moment. He believed his own ideas that he could be calm, exude dignity--and it was humiliating to realize he was trembling already, that she knew his temper better than anyone. And suddenly he felt utterly exposed between the two of them, unable to hear either, unable to know if they were communicating to each other. The confrontation of his own penchant for anger should have made him take a beat, step back, regain control, but feeling so powerless had him thrashing against all of it, making it worse.

“How can you look so wounded?” he asked Daniel. He gestured at the floor. “What did you expect? Why did you come here?”

Oh, the lovely rage that spread across Daniel’s features. It had been centuries since Marius had seen it. “I knew she wouldn’t allow it, Marius. I had hoped to mediate.”

His face was so unchanged, still so striking. Pretty and almost dainty, doll-like, despite the masculine set to his jaw. It was slowly collapsing into an ugly mix of grief and confusion. He turned away, taking a moment to pace the room, pushing his hair out of his eyes. His teeth were clenched when he looked back, and Marius felt it like a physical blow. He couldn’t recall ever seeing Daniel this way, not since the night of the fire.

“I _forgave_ him, Marius. Long ago,” his voice was tangled in his throat. “And what he did to me was worse.”

He was helplessly gesturing to the stain on the floor as he spoke, as if it were still a person in the room.

Pandora’s grip tightened.

“Your open-mindedness always made you too naive, Daniel.”

“And what was this thing you couldn’t forgive?” he demanded. His voice had gone louder and his pacing stopped. He was poised like he was ready to strike.

Ironic that he looked this way again, this distraught. Marius pictured the red tears that had streaked his face that night, the way he’d been dragged away down the hallway. He couldn’t believe he even had to say it.

“He took you.”

Daniel threw his arms up in the air and let out an abrupt, sharp bark of laughter. He covered his face with his hands and his shoulders began to shake. Marius wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying.

“Marius,” Pandora said, sweetly, at his side. She was tugging at him to make him stay. He hadn’t realized he’d been moving to cross the room.

When Daniel’s hands dropped, his face was smeared with blood. But it was laughter. It was laughter anyway. And it was so dark, so menacing.

“And you took Armand.”

He felt the words wash over his skin, and they crackled in his spine, squeezed the air from his lungs. It rippled in stinging heat all over his body.

“That…” he blinked. His muscles tensed. “The two situations are nothing alike.”

“People are not your pawns, Marius,” Daniel looked at Pandora and Marius bristled at the idea that they might be communicating over him. “We are not your toys.”

Pandora was trying to keep him steady, but even as an equal in age she was no match for the glut of Akasha’s Blood inside him. He had the vaguest sense of awareness left to slip from her grasp without lashing out and hurting her.

“It’s so clear, Marius,” Daniel said, almost seething, before Marius could respond. “Everyone sees it except for you.”

“Sees what.”

“You’re not the saint you pretend to be,” he grit his teeth and looked at Pandora. “Stop defending him.”

“Daniel…” she said, pleading. But just that, just _Daniel_ , like he would hear the rest. Marius balled his hands into fists.

“No one else in your life dares speak against you,” he continued. He threw his hands in the air. “The Great Marius! Ancient Marius!”

The animosity inside was flaring, perhaps for its last wind. Cornered there and he felt like destroying something, and couldn’t stop the words coming from his mouth. “You have the savage and ignorant soul of a drunk.”

He came forward, pointing his finger towards Marius’s chest. He was close enough to feel like a physical threat, even though he never would have stood a chance. “You didn’t protect the Parents to save anyone. You kept them for yourself. You found Armand and kept him from me. You didn’t even tell me he was safe.”

His sense of injustice was boiling beneath the surface, he could feel it as if it were real heat just beneath his skin. But…

Pandora was at his side again, enveloping him, her hands on his waist now, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“Please,” she said.

Her voice, her body, were cold enough to pull him back. He felt her lips, soft against the side of his jaw. His muscles began to relax, bit by bit.

Santino was still dead on the floor, and Daniel’s frenzy was beginning to diminish. He ran his hand through his hair and held it there for a moment, out of his face. He tried to turn away, to hide his ruined composure, but he wasn’t fast enough. Marius saw.

He saw.

 _I deserve this_.

Cold hands holding him tighter, and the air leaving the room, and his mind expanding around the lies he’d told himself forever.

But it was done.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
_et unum_

Armand’s condition has improved.

 _Improved_ is relative--there is still a ways to go, Marius knows this. _Improved_ isn’t absolute. But Marius is patient. Marius has time.

It might be unwise to let him out of your sight for more than a night or two, to let him wander too far. But he feeds now, on his own. He’s mastered the Little Drink. Daniel never taught it to him, back then. He never saw the point.

He still paints, but it seems moderate, healthy. Their rooms in Rio aren’t filled to the brim with the eggs, choked with them like their old home in the mountains was. He’s learned how to take pleasure in the accomplishment of a finished project--he can finish one and admire it for the rest of the night, he isn’t so imprisoned by the mania to make more and more and more, the outside world forgotten as he sits absorbed by each ornate design. Marius likes that he paints. Now that it isn’t such a detriment it’s something they can even do together.

Some nights, Armand even moves on to canvasses. At Marius’s side like a loyal pupil. He’d used modern implements to make the _pysanky--_ Marius was able to order the wax and dye for him--but he’s been teaching Armand how to mix the tempera paint, and it’s been nice to have him as an assistant. Armand is good at it.

(“Can’t you just buy it at the store?” he had asked at first. And Marius didn’t quite have the words to explain how comforting and familiar the ritual was.)

Improved, but not perfect. There are still nights that he lapses into moody silence, and Marius worries that he’s truly lost again, but the life inevitably dawns back onto his pretty features, and when he sees that Marius is worrying he always offers a tiny little smile. Young when he was turned, just shy of thirty, and small for his time. Being unwell and malnourished for his last few years alive didn’t help. But there’s something incredibly boyish about his face, soft, and when he offers a smile he can seem like a different person.

Having him here is a breath of air for Marius’s old, old soul.

Dawn is approaching, and when he sees that Armand has appeared in the doorway without being summoned his heart feels like it might break. Improved. This is a first.

There’s a strange surge in his chest, the mixing of joy, like a proud father, with sudden and dark desperation. If Armand is better…

“Come here,” he says softly, and outstretches his arm. Armand’s hair is clean, his face clear. Not like how it used to get, smudged with specks of dye. He’d smell like vinegar and the wax would be caked into his fingernails. But this is better.

He crosses the room soundlessly, graceful, and climbs into Marius’s lap. It’s a pre-dawn ritual that started as simple nourishment and has evolved somehow into… something else. Marius strokes Armand’s cheek with this back of his knuckles, taking a moment to absorb all of it. Because he doesn’t think it can last much longer.

Even when Armand was vacant, taking the Blood from Marius’s wrist, night after night, little pieces of himself were being exposed. It was maybe subliminal, or in fragments to be assembled later like a puzzle. But it seemed that Armand knew him now, more intimately than he should. He presses his lips to the artery in Marius’s throat but doesn’t bite, obediently waiting for permission.

“Drink,” Marius says, and he tilts his head to the side to make room. He runs his hand over Armand’s hair, letting his fingers become entwined in the curls, as he feels the small teeth break through.

His heart is pumping, hard and heavy into Armand’s mouth, and the boy’s hands move restlessly as he swallows it down. One is bunching the fabric of Marius’s sweater, right at the bottom over his hipbone, and the other is wandering up his chest, the other side of his neck, his jaw. His fingers idly trace and pinch the outside of Marius’s ear.  Marius turns his head to kiss the pale, smooth wrist.

 _Marius_ , he’s saying. And it’s an invitation.

This happens every time, and ever since he saw Daniel last it’s felt like a violation, like he’s seeing something he shouldn’t see. But the guilt isn’t enough to stop him, and he knows he will always embrace the part of himself that is perpetually wounded. Somehow his life has been marked by these tragedies, and when he’s being honest with himself he knows it’s how he’s sculpted his identity. He moans into the mouthful of Armand’s flesh as his fangs sink inside. It’s painful, it makes him stare hard into his own mistakes, but the thrill of it gives him a rush he doesn’t know how to live without.

 _Daniel_. And Daniel, and Daniel, and Daniel. Every time, in every corner of Armand’s mind. They are memories that Marius perhaps has no business knowing, but he craves the way they make him ache. He can’t remember the last time he saw Daniel smile, genuinely smile, with his own eyes.

There he was, seated in a hotel room, across from the bed, grinning from behind his hands as Armand rode a stranger. And there, the night they saw _Ghostbusters_ in the theatre, and Daniel was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes, and the cinema manager had asked him to quiet down. And there, sneaking kisses on the fire escape before he left at sunrise, promising he’d come right back. The night he’d set off the hotel smoke alarm trying to teach himself how to make pancakes. When he showed off his vampire strength by giving Armand a piggyback ride the entire length of the Coney Island boardwalk. And the raucous, unbridled delight in his face when he could startle Armand by appearing, just appearing, out of nowhere. On a bus, in a restaurant. With Armand he was always laughing.

He drinks these images in, savors them as much as he savors Armand himself. He grabs Armand by the thigh and pulls him in closer, grips his hand tighter in Armand’s hair.

Armand must be seeing something of the same. Of course, Marius has more to look in on, entire lifetimes. But whether or not they ever admit it out loud, they both know that their love for Daniel is a fulcrum that binds them.

It’s not just his behavior that’s gotten better--Marius can _taste_ it. It’s full-bodied, heavier than it used to be, a dulcet flavor that makes the hair raise on the back of his neck. Intense and heady. Exquisite.

He’s strong, he’s recovering. He’s curious again. He reads through Marius’s library and asks questions about Lucretius. He is well. He knows he is loved.

 _You’re not the saint you pretend to be_ , Daniel told him once. He hopes Armand doesn’t hear that part.

They break apart slowly, when it’s done. It’s a natural timing that neither have to worry about. It’s over when it’s over. And wounds heal, and excess blood is licked away. Hands pet through hair. Marius kisses Armand’s brow.

He falls asleep earlier. So young. Precious. Marius lays with him in the large bed, safe in their windowless room. And he knows, in these moments, and has known, that Armand is the thread keeping him alive. Keeping him above ground.

_You didn’t even tell me he was safe._

Armand is fully swept under beneath the dawn, his face completely tranquil as he sleeps. Thick lashes against his cheeks and the faint spray of freckles. It is something like literal death, like peace, and he doesn’t stir when Marius removes himself from their embrace and stands.

He takes a moment just to stare, and his heart is hammering into his ribs. It’s a terror that feels infinite.

There are still a few hours before dawn in New York.

It’s not like before. Armand is not his to give away, or to keep. But Daniel deserves to know. Marius owes him that.

His fingers trail over the telephone receiver on the nightstand.

He doesn’t think it will be so quick.

**Author's Note:**

> [*waves from Tumblr*](https://monstersinthecosmos.tumblr.com/post/169107647009/quinque-plus-unum-a-fic-for-sheepskeleton)


End file.
